


the way you held me so tight, all through the night

by untakenbeepun



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [5]
Category: The Bright Sessions (Podcast)
Genre: Bad Things Happen Bingo, Car Accident, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, overwhelming hospital emotions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-18 11:36:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21710137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/untakenbeepun/pseuds/untakenbeepun
Summary: Caleb's ability causes him to get into an accident. The subsequent hospital trip proves to be too much for his empath abilities.
Relationships: Adam Hayes/Caleb Michaels
Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1515029
Comments: 3
Kudos: 69





	the way you held me so tight, all through the night

**Author's Note:**

> Bad Things Happen Bingo Prompt: Hospital Stay

Hospital stays were nightmarish enough without being atypical.

“Unfortunately, surgery on your leg will have to take place tomorrow,” the doctor says, checking down her clipboard.

“ _Tomorrow?”_ Caleb says, his heart sinking.

“It’s as quick as we can get you in to have the operation done,” she says, “is that going to be a problem?”

Caleb sighs sinking back against the bed. “I was just hoping to get out of here quicker, that’s all.” 

He feels a hiss of sympathy from her, but mostly he just feels the stress rolling off of her, probably thinking about the dozens of other patients under her care, all of her responsibilities piling on top of her.

“You’re going to be alright,” she says, squeezing his shoulder. “I know a night in the hospital seems scary, but I promise you it won’t be as bad as you think. You’ve got your painkillers, and you can always call for a nurse if you need help.”

Caleb presses his lips together and nods. He can’t exactly say to her: _I can feel every emotion in this room and it already feels like I’m drowning._

“I’ll send your parents in as soon as they get here. I understand they were away from home at the time of the accident?”

“Yeah,” Caleb says, feeling a tinge of guilt at the thought of his parents having to rush home from their vacation.

There’s that sympathy from her again, and Caleb feels the urge to shake it off, but he forces his shoulders to keep still. 

“It’s going to be okay, Caleb,” she says, “I promise.”

“Yeah, I know. Thank you,” he says, even though he feels like gritting his teeth.

The doctor leaves, and he’s left alone on the ward, leg propped up in agony. He closes his eyes and fights off the urge to cry. He’s not a child. Stray emotions were what had got him into this mess; he certainly doesn’t need any _more._

He’d been crossing the road when the panic had hit him. It was large and overwhelming, and his legs had frozen instantly. He couldn’t get them to move. All he could do was feel this rushing fear in his veins, this screaming in his brain, a loud and uncontrollable panic that had only worsened when he spotted the car speeding across the road and was powerless to do anything but stand and wait for it to hit him.

He still doesn’t know where the panic came from. Or from who.

He sits alone in his bed, his own misery, the pain from his broken leg and all his fear about spending a night alone with a hospital are made so much worse by the emotions he can feel from everywhere else in the hospital. Other people’s fears mixing in with his own, sadness, bad diagnoses, or worsening symptoms. A surge of the most horrible devastation that could only mean someone going through the very worst. It makes tears prick at his eyes.

Caleb feels suddenly very alone in this hospital, very alone in this world, and he’s about to push the button that would call the nurse just so that he can stop being so very _alone,_ when he hears a very familiar voice calling his name.

“Caleb? _Caleb?”_

There’s this surge of familiar worry that emerges the hallway behind the door, accompanied by loud footsteps, and then there underneath it all is that wonderful green, smoothing everything out.

“Adam!” Caleb calls, and he’s almost crying as he says his boyfriend’s name, and when he sees Adam’s face, creased with worry and fear, he can’t stop it, fat tears streaming down his cheeks.

“Caleb, Caleb, _hey,”_ Adam says softly, reaching Caleb’s bed and wrapping his arms around his shoulders. “I’m here, it’s alright.”

“Sorry,” Caleb mumbles, furiously brushing tears away from his face from the back of his hand, “sorry, everything’s just a bit—”

“—Overwhelming?” Adam supplies, and Caleb nods. 

“How did you know I was here? My phone got smashed in the accident.” 

“Your parents called. They sounded so worried on the phone and I—” Adam rubs his face, and Caleb can feel the worry rolling off him in waves. “—I had to come. They were a bit hysterical, Caleb, I thought something really awful had happened.”

He glances at Caleb’s leg.

“I got hit by a car,” Caleb explains, and Adam looks stricken. “I’m _fine,”_ he adds, even though he’s clearly not.

“What happened?” Adam says, his face paling.

Caleb swallows. “I felt… someone’s panic, or their fear, I don’t know, but I was crossing the road, and suddenly I couldn’t move, and, and—”

Adam drops down onto the chair next to the bed, leaning across Caleb and sliding his arms around his waist. He rests his chin on Caleb’s chest. Caleb holds onto Adam’s arm and runs his fingers through his hair, desperate for contact. 

“I’m going to have my leg fixed tomorrow, but I have to stay overnight,” he says.

Adam’s head lifts up, and with another spark of worry, Caleb knows that he doesn’t have to explain why this is going to be a problem. Adam’s hand snakes its way to Caleb’s, fingers lacing together.

“Are you going to be alright?”

Caleb opens his mouth instinctively to say that it’s going to be fine, but then he remembers that he doesn’t have to lie to Adam. “It’s… already too much. I can feel _everything_ on this floor. It’s too much at once. I feel like my head’s about to explode.”

Adam’s arm recedes a little. “Do you need me to leave?” 

“No!” Caleb says, a little too forcefully as he grabs hold of Adam’s hand and pulls him back, “no, please stay. You keep everything _green.”_

Adam flashes that smile that shows all of his dimples - the one that instantly melts Caleb’s heart - and then rests his head back on his chest. 

“Are you feeling okay otherwise?” he says, laying right on Caleb’s heart. “Physically, I mean?”

“Hurts like hell,” Caleb admits. “And I’m _fucked_ for football.”

Adam winces. “Sorry. I know how much football means to you.”

He buries his face into Caleb’s chest and lets out a long sigh. Something shifts in his emotions, something peeking through the green.

“You don’t need to feel scared,” Caleb says, “I’ll go in for the surgery tomorrow, and then my leg will be bad for a while, and that’ll suck, but it’s going to be okay.”

“Sorry,” Adam mumbles, his voice small. “I just hate seeing you get hurt.”

Caleb presses a kiss to Adam’s head. “I’m going to be alright.”

“It’s not that,” Adam says. “It’s just…with your ability, you’re more liable to getting hurt. Like today. What if you’d been hurt worse? What if the car had been going faster, what if it’d hit you at just the wrong angle, or you’d been knocked into something—”

“Hey, hey,” Caleb soothes, as Adam’s voice reaches a higher level of worry. “Don’t panic.”

Adam takes a long breath out. “Sorry, _sorry,_ I know you don’t need any more unstable emotions right now, I’ll try and—” 

“That’s not it. Don’t try and… not feel your emotions around me, yeah? That doesn’t help either of us,” he says.

“Okay. I’ll try.”

“I don’t think it helps to… catastrophise like that,” Caleb says. “I don’t think I’m that much more liable to getting into scrapes than anyone else. I was just particularly unlucky this time.” 

“But it’s not just getting into accidents, is it?” Adam says, his arms tightening around Caleb’s waist. “There’s plenty of people out there who’d want to hurt you just for being Atypical. I mean, everything the AM do, and people like Damien—”

“—Let’s not talk about him,” Caleb interjects.

“Sorry. I just worry about something bad happening to you all the time. I worry about—” Adam draws in one long breath, “ _losing_ you.”

Caleb wraps his arms tighter around Adam. “You’re not going to lose me.”

“You can’t promise that.”

“ _I can,_ ” Caleb says, forcefully. “Nothing is going to keep us apart. I promise.”

Adam laughs, a little shakily. 

“What?”

“I mean, if someone had told me a year ago that a meathead like you would say something as romantic as that to me, I’d have laughed in their face.”

“Dork,” Caleb says, affectionately. “Come here.”

He inches over to the other side of the bed, wincing as he jostles his leg, and opens up a space for Adam.

Adam casts a wary eye over to the hallway. “Is that even allowed?”

“I don’t care if it’s allowed,” Caleb says. “I need you right now.”

Adam kicks off his sneakers and eases gently into the bed, careful not to bump into Caleb’s bad leg. Caleb pulls Adam towards him, letting stretch out beside him and settle comfortably at his side, arms around his waist. His head rests under Caleb’s chin, stray hairs tickling Caleb’s nose. Adam’s warmth against him is the comfort he desperately needed, and he can feel himself finally relax.

He lets out a sigh. “I wish you could stay overnight with me.”

He feels the curl of Adam’s smile against his chest. “I’ll sneak back in after dark,” Adam says. “I’ll shimmy up the drainpipe and squeeze through the window.”

“What if the nurse catches you?”

“Fuck the nurses,” Adam says.

Caleb lets out a laugh, and then sighs. “It’s going to be horrible here on my own.”

Adam frowns, tracing circles around Caleb’s heart. “I’d text you all night if I could.” 

“I don’t know how I’m going to what I’m going to do without my phone. There’s only so much ceiling you can stare at.”

“Sorry,” Adam says. “I would have brought you a book or something, if I’d known.” 

“Don’t apologise, it’s fine,” Caleb says, “it’s just… a broken leg _and_ a smashed phone?”

“I know, I’m—”

Caleb grins. “Don’t say sorry.”

“I’m… glad that you’re okay, Caleb.”

“Yeah, me too.”

Adam curls into Caleb, closing his eyes. Caleb’s fingers trace their way through Adam’s curls, the two of them content to just _be,_ holding onto each other in comfortable silence, until Caleb’s parents arrive.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr at [bee-elzebub](https://bee-ezlebub.tumblr.com/) and on twitter at [@untakenbeepun](https://twitter.com/untakenbeepun)


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